


Dear Shisui

by flameofarcana



Category: Naruto
Genre: Depression, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide, self-harm ideation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-19
Updated: 2020-03-19
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:07:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23208256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flameofarcana/pseuds/flameofarcana
Summary: Sasuke wonders if anything will matter ever again.
Relationships: Uchiha Itachi & Uchiha Sasuke, Uchiha Sasuke & Uzumaki Naruto
Comments: 9
Kudos: 70





	Dear Shisui

**Author's Note:**

> HEAVY TRIGGER WARNINGS for graphic descriptions of suicide, suicidal thoughts, self harm ideation, and the general state of a very depressed person. If these things may upset you, please be careful!
> 
> This mostly came to me as word vomit in the middle of the night. I debated posting it, because of the nature of the content, but ultimately decided that I should. This was a very vulnerable thing for me to share, and very different than what I normally write. 
> 
> I very much do not!! Like the first few paragraphs but I am trying to Let Go of this. 
> 
> Not 100% sure what to say, so--enjoy, friends.

It was strange, the way time moved when life stopped moving. 

The day no longer had any control over the way time passed; the day came out of Alice’s rabbit hole, a clock that never stopped ticking yet never progressed, a door with infinite locks that could never be opened no matter how many keys were tried, only an exhausting rigmarole of mindless, pointless routine. The day stretched endlessly, never enough time to get anything done, and then it was over.

Night was the claustrophobia of vastness, a deserted wasteland that stretched and stretched and stretched and stretched, no end in sight, the horizon curving just out of reach, and all the open-spaced anxieties that came with it. Sleep felt hollow; it brought no rest, just an excuse to ignore the present, a desperate attempt at numbness, an anesthesia that still let just enough throbbing through to remind of the underlying sickness.

Mornings were hazy, dreary, gelatinous. Mornings sunk fingers into sleep, clutching, grasping, pulling, saying _you can’t escape so easily,_ licking at the nightmares so the taste lingered after waking up. Getting out of bed was incomprehensible, and yet it had to be done, until it didn’t, until even that didn’t matter anymore, until nothing mattered anymore.

It repeated, a cycle that could not be broken, even though the person it revolved around was broken. The dates on the calendar stuck together like glue, and most of the time Sasuke couldn’t be bothered to pull them apart, and so they passed in clumps.

It was strange, the way everything meant nothing and nothing meant everything.

Sasuke didn’t flinch when he was fired. It wasn’t even in person, but by email, since he stopped bothering to show up to work most days, his appearances few and far between and unaccompanied by any sort of ethic or productivity. He had deleted every kind hearted email from coworkers without even opening them, whether they be warning or consoling. He didn’t think twice about the red-stamped letters that came in the mail; he stopped opening them altogether so they could burn a hole in the counter where they sat like lead. He didn’t even notice when the lights stopped turning on because he never flipped the switches anymore anyway. And yet, upon a bottle of soy sauce slipping between his fingers and shattering against the unwashed linoleum floor, Sasuke found himself screaming, tears on his cheeks, fingers curled into claws as his knees lost their resolve and became brown-stained and glass-bitten against the floor.

It was strange, the way people stopped mattering when they were the only thing left.

Sakura stopped calling weeks ago. It was a relief, more than anything, because her voice was sad, affectionate, worried. It carried with it the reminder, laced in every word, buried in each syllable, the lilt in her tone and the phrasing she chose so potently _aware_. It was reminiscent, more than anything, and one more voice mail and Sasuke would have ripped the answering machine out of the wall. Naruto still called. His calls were bearable at best. He acted happy—he always did. Naruto always was the sun in people’s personal solar systems. People gravitated around him, absorbed his warmth and shined it on to the next person—everyone but Sasuke, it seemed, who felt like a black hole. Naruto thought he could fix everyone’s problems by being excessively cheerful, by laughing and encouraging in the face of nothingness, because that’s how he survived, a self-powered, fully sustained backup generator of a person. Shikamaru called, sometimes, and Sasuke barely knew why. Maybe Ino was forcing him, because she didn’t feel close enough to call. Maybe he cared. He sounded apathetic, either way, not that it was any different than his normal tone, and at least it fitted seamlessly into Sasuke’s bare, still, frozen apartment. Kakashi called, once, and then never again. He understood, Sasuke guessed.

_Dear Shisui,_   
_Things have gotten so hard lately. Nothing has changed, I don’t think, so I don’t know why everything feels off. Sometimes my arms feel heavy. Not physically; I was healthy at my last checkup. It’s just harder to move sometimes. My fingers don’t bend all the way, my legs don’t move as fast. I’m tired all the time no matter how much I sleep. I don’t want to do anything these days. It feels like I’m outgrowing my old hobbies—none of them bring me joy, anymore. I’m not sure what does. My body is weighted down like my soul has a stronger gravitational pull. Do you think that’s possible? You always believed in souls so strongly._

It’s just passed one when Sasuke wakes. He rolls his head to the side, hair sticking to his neck and cheek. His shoulders already feel tight. He contemplates stretching. He doesn’t.

The air in his bedroom is still and thick. He feels too warm, so he pushes the blankets off and stares at the popcorn ceiling. He wonders, idly, for the hundredth time, if there is asbestos in the ceiling. He thinks about climbing up the walls like a cockroach and taking a giant bite out of it.

Everything is too still, and the stillness amplifies every sound and touch. His own nose in his peripheral looks like it’s behind a magnifying glass, the dresser across the room seems too large, out of place in a room devoid of sensation. The curtain that remains unmoved in front of the window translates the afternoon sun into a murky yellow glow that washes everything out and blends it into the same color. Sasuke can feel every stich of his sleep pants on his knees, the press of the elastic band against his hip; the stray hair against his face agitates him. He can feel his own toes on his feet, and thinks about cutting them off.

_Dear Shisui,  
I don’t want to go to work anymore. I don’t have any motivation, which confuses me. Didn’t I love this job? Hm, I feel like I remember telling you how excited I was about it. So why don’t I care anymore? There’s a large promotion, a better position, something I’m sure would be a good fit for me. I don’t mind if I don’t get it, though. I’m not sure I will even apply. I feel ashamed. I know I should be aiming high. I know my father would be disappointed in me. I feel like I’m letting everyone down, and I wish I didn’t feel this way. I don’t want to feel this way anymore. I’m losing myself a little bit every day, and it scares me. Ah. I can’t admit this to anyone but you, Shisui. _

He finds himself sitting up on the edge of his bed. He supposes it’s not much more to stand. Further, it won’t be much more to walk across his room, to the dresser, and get new clothes. It won’t be much more to get his hairbrush from bathroom and brush his hair. He can feel it, scratchy and matted against his neck, and he doesn’t like it. Maybe he will brush it, today. Maybe.

He ends up on his feet.

He doesn’t feel good. He never does anymore, so it seems almost pointless to acknowledge it. He has the groggy, muddled headspace of someone waking up passed noon, and the back of his throat is dry from not having drunk all night. Well, more like the last two days. He should probably do that, too. 

Already, there’s too many things to do.

He makes it to his closet, blinks, rubs the side of his face. He’s not wearing a shirt from sleep, so he thumbs through what he has hanging up. Half way through he realizes that he doesn’t really care, and grabs an old, soft hoodie and pulls it over his head. He doesn’t bother to change his sweats. He doesn’t bother to change his underwear, and doesn’t even remember when he did last.

He honest to God considers getting back into bed. The inside of his bed is so familiar, now. There’s a dull, grey-ish smear across one side of his fitted sheet, because he sleeps in the same place every night, and if he takes the sheet off to clean he knows he won’t put it back on, and then they grey smear will form on the mattress from him laying on it unwashed every night.

Getting back in bed won’t make him feel better, though. His blankets stick dirty to his skin, his pillow grimy on his face, oily from his hair. No, his bed isn’t any better.

He has to piss, anyways, so he stumbles to the bathroom. He relieves himself, doesn’t wash his hands afterwards. He contemplates showering for the briefest moment, and in the back of his mind tries to count the days that have passed since he last bathed. He gets to five and decides to stop. He looks at his hairbrush on the sink, and then walks out of the bathroom.

_Dear Shisui,  
I met someone the other day. Met someone, met someone. I know, I know! I should have told you sooner. I was just nervous. At first I didn’t know what to make of it. We’ve gotten close, though. He’s very…tall. Hah. Yes, tall. I think you would like him. You’re similar in a lot of ways. It’s odd, though. Sometimes things feel easier when I think about him. Things feel…lighter. More like how they were when I had you around. It’s unnerving, almost. I don’t want to get my hopes up, but I might be falling in love. But…ah. Do you think it’s artificial? Maybe I’ll just enjoy it._

He’s in the main area of his one bedroom apartment, now. His apartment has a sitting room that is bare of everything but a couch and a TV he doesn’t use. His kitchen is connected, the hallway having three doors that lead to a closet, a bathroom, and his bedroom.

He blinks, surveying what he has to work with.

There’s a bag of trash by the door. The can started to spill over a couple days ago, and he was bothered enough by it to stomp it down with his foot and tie up the bag. He dragged it all the way to the door before he decided he didn’t want to have to leave the room and go outside, all the way down the flight of stairs and through the lobby, out the door and to the dumpster in the parking lot. So he left it by the door. He could take it out now, of course, but he still doesn’t feel in the mood to leave the apartment, doesn’t like the idea of being seen by anyone right now. So he leaves it by the door for a different day that he knows will never come.

There’s bills to pay, Sasuke can see the urgencies of his overdrafts and late payments stacked on the kitchen counter, and he considers checking his bank statement and seeing what he can cough up, but his cellphone is discarded somewhere in his room, left purposefully uncharged because he can’t deal with the implications it brings. He doesn’t want to have to find it, and there isn’t enough money to fix his problems anyways.

The dishes. They’re stacked high, everything he’s used shoved together. He knows the plates and bowls and mugs and pans are stuck together, all the residue from food mutated to fuzzy green mold. He can see fruit flies hovering over the tower, and once he starts digging into it more will burst forth, cloaked in the stench of rotten food, and he’ll have to scrub their eggs out from between the gritty prongs of his forks. No, he doesn’t want to do that, either.

There’s a couple of pill bottles in tossed in the corner. They’re those crazy-person pills Sakura gave him, with her tight, worried eyes, far too warm to be comfortable. Most people would probably feel blessed to have a psychiatrist for a friend, especially one willing to break the rules and dose him out medication without the consultation, skipping the ‘how do you feels’ that Sasuke just can’t fucking bear anymore. Maybe he should take them. Maybe they actually will make him feel better, maybe all of this can be fixed by shifting the balance of neurotransmitters in his ramshackle brain. He thinks about trying them, for her, like she pleaded with him when she gave them to him. He thinks about opening the bottles and swallowing all sixty some tablets in a couple of gulps, washing them down with nothing but his own spit.

He brushes some hair off of his ear and with it the thought from his mind. 

_Dear Shisui,  
I don’t understand. Am I cursed?_

Food—that’s something he needs. He doesn’t eat much anymore. He always was a picky eater, ever since he was a kid. Food was an afterthought, something to do just to survive. But when your instinct for survival fades, what’s left to keep you going? Cooking and preparing food was almost always out of the question. It was too much—not just the cooking, but the cleaning up afterwards. It was impossible now, with the mess of the sink spilling out and covering the stove, with every usable pan crusted in the moldy water. Last time he made eggs he had to use a sauce pan, and even that he used again and again without washing, just scraping with a paper towel, until he disgusted even himself.

It’s not like he enjoys eating, anyways. Food seemed to dislike him as much as he disliked it, always roiling in his belly, fighting him as he tried to live off of it. Sasuke didn’t really bother to taste his food, either.

He opens the fridge, staring for several seconds without registering anything in his mind. There’s his empty Brita, which he would fill if he had a clean glass to drink out of (at least that’s what he tells himself), a bag of frozen fruit that ended up leaking thick, sticky syrup and coating his shelf, a few frozen burritos, shredded cheese, a bottle of katsu dipping sauce. He’s got rice and pasta in the pantry, probably a box of kraft, but his milk is surely rotten and clumpy by now.

He can smell the sink.

He sighs and closes the fridge. There’s nothing better in the freezer, he knows that, and he really doesn’t want to eat anyway.

He doesn’t want to do anything, anyway.

He wants to get back in bed.

_Dear Shisui  
I don’t…know how to do this anymore. It’s hard. Everything is hard. I don’t want to fight an uphill battle anymore. Everyone keeps telling me it will get better. Haven’t I waited long enough for things to get better? It’s been so long of hoping aimlessly. I’m trying as hard as I can. I don’t know what to do, Shisui. What do I do?_

Tea, he thinks. Tea actually might make him feel better, and the warmth will be good for his chest and dry throat. He can make tea, right? Open the cupboard, get the kettle, rinse the kettle, fill it with water, turn on the stove, put the kettle on the stove, wait for it to heat, remove it from the stove, get a box of tea, pull a teabag out, put it in the water, wait for the tea to cool. Drink.

His hand drops from the fridge door. It’s entirely too much to do. His body moves, anyways. He thinks about the time, when he was a child, when he severed a snakes head with a garden hoe in his backyard and it continued to strike in death.

The kettle is thankfully clean since it only ever holds water. Unfortunately, the faucet is buried in the mound in the sink, the neck bending like a swan dive and plunging into a pot he heated soup in two weeks ago.

He turns on the stove and fills the kettle with just enough water in the bathroom. It’s glowing a hot red when he gets back.

He thinks about sticking his palm to the metal surface of the stove until his skin melts and bubbles like cheese, till steam rises and curses the room with the scent of liquefied flesh.

He puts the kettle on, instead, and goes to choose his tea.

_Dear Shisui,  
When is it going to get better_

Sometimes, Sasuke can’t help but imagine what it looked like. He was relayed the details, of course, but he didn’t see it. He was told it was better that way, that seeing it would be too painful. He doubts it was for the best, now, because he can’t stop thinking about it, and even when he doesn’t want to his mind conjures up the images and forces him to see it, _look, look, look, look at what happened._

The kettle on the stove begins to keen. Sasuke realizes he is still staring at the teas. He doesn’t care which one he drinks anymore and grabs a box without noticing the label. He pads across the kitchen, the sound loud to his own ears.

He wonders how many blankets the blood soaked through. Surely it seeped all the way through the comforter. Maybe even the mattress was ruined. Maybe it spilled out onto the floor, staining the wood with red and the room with the immovable stench of what happened. 

He sets the bag of tea down on the counter and rescues the kettle from the stovetop. It isn’t until he has it in his hands that he realizes he needs a mug. He sighs, feeling his shoulders sag. He sets the kettle back down, walks to a new cabinet, opens it, and stares at the mugs, another choice he just doesn’t want to have to make.

Maybe the sheets were white, and the blood bloomed red and poetic, seeped around him like a cruel halo. Maybe it spread wide, turned the sheets into a chrysalis for a corpse. Or maybe the blankets were dark blue or black, and the blood couldn’t even be seen until they were pulled back, exposing it smeared across skin, gooey and darkened, clotting against stale air.

Sasuke’s grabbed a mug by now, holding it by the handle, trying to shift his attention to the way it feels under his palm, smooth and cool. He thinks about smashing it against the counter, grabbing a jagged chunk that breaks off and seeing how far he can plunge it into his throat. He fills the mug from the kettle, watches the warm water swirl and then smooth. The teabag bursts color into a murky golden cloud. Sasuke stares at the tea for several seconds, watching it dilute, and then begins to bob the bag a few times.

He sees it, in his head, exactly how it would have looked. He looked up how it was done, of course; he had to know, he had to learn just how much you had to dig and rip through to make sure it was effective. His skin, paler than it already was, sliced into gashes, ravines in wrists. He can see his tendons, snapped like yanked spaghetti, his veins shriveled and shredded like a worm on the pavement the morning after rain, frayed at the edges. His arteries, burst, torn, severed, black with congealed blood.

He doesn’t wait for the tea to cool. It burns his tongue.

_Dear Shisui,  
I’m tired. I’m so tired of trying. I don’t have the energy to feel what I feel anymore. I don’t even have the energy to write you anymore. There’s nothing left inside of me. _

He ends up on the couch only because it isn’t the bed.

He should call Sakura, or Naruto or—or anyone. They’re going to give up on him soon, going to let what they thought was an unbreakable bond fizzle out like an opened soda. Even the most loving people will tire of unrequited effort, even the most dedicated friends will take the hint. They may have, already. Sakura stopped calling, right? It’s too late. Naruto calls, sure, but Naruto hasn’t seen the inside of his apartment, Naruto hasn’t actually gotten to _see_ Sasuke yet. Not even Naruto, with his laugh and eyes and grin and blush, can fix Sasuke now.

Maybe it’s for the best. Maybe Sasuke should let everyone he loves slip out of his life. After all, it will be so much easier to let himself return to dirt in a corner of his apartment if he knows that the only people it will effect will be whomever has to scrape him out of the carpet. Now he knows what it feels like, to be left, now he knows what it will mean to leave other people.

They could help. They could remind him what life feels like when every dream that skitters through his empty, sleeping skull is about death, when every thought that drips like honey in the recesses of his mind is flavored with how he can do it. Kakashi has been through it, too, and he’s though on more than one occasion about trying to find solace and shelter from his own mind in his old mentor. But Kakashi is also arrogant, and thinks that people should deal with their grief exactly like he did, and Sasuke can’t take any outside judgement when he already can just look around his surroundings and judge himself.

Sasuke doesn’t know if he wants to get better. Sometimes the feelings of friends who never bothered to get to know him that well to begin with just aren’t enough, not on the worst days, sometimes not even on the best days. Increasingly, the only desire in Sasuke’s heart is to slip through the fabric of life and go to him, because as long as he is gone Sasuke isn’t sure anything means anything.

He stares at the wall, the dull eggshell paint, and he can see pieces of his skull stuck by blood to it, his brain splattered in chunks, black hair matted in sickly red, a perfectly round, tiny hole in the center of it all.

He wonders what will ever matter again.

_Dear Shisui,  
I know that I’ve failed. I’ve failed everyone, by now, including you. I’ve only held on this long for Sasuke, and I thought I could accept myself as long as I did that. I can’t even do that anymore. It’s not because of him, it will never be because of him lacking, or because he wasn’t reason enough. He will always be enough, he will always be so much more than anything my life deserved to love. I am the one that is not enough. I’m so sorry, Shisui. I know you wouldn’t be happy with me. I thought I always knew who I was. I understand now what it takes for a person to truly see themselves clearly. I have no other choice. I’m so sorry. I love you. _

Sasuke’s lost track of time, as always, slumped against the wall in the dark of his apartment. There’s just enough dark blue ambient light to read the three-folded letters in his hands. They’re warped, stiffened from the wetness of his tears. How many nights has he spent crying himself hoarse over them? How many nights has he bitten his lip bloody trying to stifle his suffering so already nosy neighbors won’t try and wrench the door open and face the outpouring of his guts, rage, anguish.

How many nights did Itachi do the same before he couldn’t take it anymore?

How many more nights does Sasuke have?

His throat is sore, eyes red, nose raw when the door opens. He doesn’t even look up—if it is an intruder, what does he care anymore? He figures that he’s forgotten to lock the door. He doesn’t even remember the last time he left his apartment, realizes that the door has been open for anyone to stroll in and watch him decompose in every way but physically.

It’s not an intruder, though.

Naruto looks so unbelievably out of place, almost six feet of sunshine compressed into a stupidly sweet human boy.

Sasuke remembers when Naruto made his heart feel the same way smelling rising bread makes one feel. He remembers when Naruto soothed his soul, when Naruto completed his fragmented, duct taped world. He misses that part of himself so goddamn much, the part of him that made him still feel human, the part of him that still tasted the sweetness of hope. The contrast between that Sasuke and the one he has fallen to shoves another choke out of his throat.

“The door was open,” Naruto says, still hovering near the entrance, staring with pained, worried eyes at Sasuke’s disheveled form. “Can I come in?”

Sasuke doesn’t answer him. Sasuke only looks at him through is peripheral. Maybe that’s all that is bearable, maybe looking at Naruto’s face head on will be like looking at the sun, melting whatever of his eyes the tears haven’t eroded. Then Sasuke won’t be able to read these letters anymore—not that it matters, not that they aren’t memorized, not that they don’t run through his head every minute of the fucking day. Sasuke could grab kitchen knives, like Itachi, and sink them into his eyeballs, pop them both and let the fluid running down his cheeks be the last tears he ever cries. Then he can rot, fully, finally, his mind a theater to the fabricated images of Itachi’s arms ripped open, the soundtrack his last cries for help to a dead person.

“He liked sweets,” he rasped.

Naruto looks at him with wide, bewildered eyes. The apartment is so dull they don’t even look blue anymore. Who knew Sasuke could suck the life out of even Naruto. He unfreezes slowly and lets the apartment door close behind him quietly. It thumps, and he flinches at how loud it seems. Sasuke’s at least glad to know it’s not just him, that time and space have warped sensory awareness in his glorified coffin of a living space.

“Yeah?” Naruto says eventually. He walks across the room. He has a plastic bag in his hand; Sasuke can’t tell what is in it.

“He liked strawberry flavored sweets the most.” Another fat tear rolls down his cheek. “And green tea. Every time I visited him, he had baskets of strawberry and green tea kitkats in his kitchen. I used to joke that he was more kitkat than water by mass.”

Naruto reaches him. He keeps staring, gaze intense, and then he nods. He sits down next to Sasuke, but doesn’t try to touch him, legs bent, arms rested on his knees. “You wanna tell me about him?”

Sasuke doesn’t like crying, especially not in front of other people, but the tears slip out of his eyes the way raindrops fall from leaves after rain. “He used to tell me that his favorite candy was milky way. It wasn’t till later that I found out that he only said that because he used to trade me his snickers for my milky way when we went trick or treating, because snickers were my favorite and I hated milky way, and he wanted me to think it was a fair trade.”

Surprisingly, Naruto isn’t trying to cheer him up, tell him it is okay, try to get him up and turn the lights on and get him away from the internal rot that has so potently spilled over Sasuke’s threshold. He’s sure Naruto can smell the dishes sink, or the trash, or Sasuke himself. He doesn’t comment. In the most uncharacteristic display Sasuke has ever seen, Naruto doesn’t say anything.

“He used to listen to old timey, corny love songs. Sinatra and Elvis, Fly Me to the Moon and all that; acted like he was an old man, one of those dumbasses that says they were born in the wrong generation based off of music taste alone. He always was a hopeless romantic. Always. I used to make fun of him so much for it. I would fuck with his playlist when I went over to visit him and throw some real loud shit in with it. The look on his face when ‘It Had to be You’ transitioned into Belleview by Knocked loose—” The noise he makes is part laugh, part sob, all anguish.

“He baked when we were younger. He was never a good cook, but he could bake. I think it was all the careful measurements and steps. I think that resonated with him. And he got to eat the batter as he made it.” Sasuke sniffles. “My dad hated it. He didn’t think it was fitting for a man to spend so much time doing something like that. Itachi never cared.”

It’s there again, the pressure inside his chest, a dam that’s creaking around the edges. “I always admired that about him,” he croaked. “He never cared what people thought. He had such a firm belief in what he thought was right or wrong. He was one of the most stubborn people I know but it was…it wasn’t a bad thing, because he really just…believed in things so strongly….” He trails off, feeling the burning increase behind his eyes, the scratching of his throat hiss like a cat.

“I know,” Naruto says, low, “that everyone who knew him took something profound away from him.”

Sasuke nods. “Took. Yeah. Everyone took from him. Even me. Everyone took, and no one gave, and now he’s dead.”

It’s the first time Sasuke has said it out loud. There’s power in saying things out loud, so he’s been avoiding it. Maybe he thought it would make it more real, to be uttered into the universe, to be formed with words, to be made a concept that exists outside of Sasuke’s skull. It’s silly, he knows that, because plenty of other people have said it, plenty of other people have commented on it and processed it and already gotten over it.

The words don’t hold the power Sasuke thought they would. It doesn’t punch him in the gut or clinch the lungs that hug his dead heart. The words are just dead, like Itachi is, like Sasuke wishes he was.

“You know how he died?” Sasuke whispered.

Naruto stared at him for a moment, and then shook his head reluctantly. “No, I don’t.”

“He swaddled himself up in a bunch of blankets on his bed, and then cut through his forearms with kitchen knives until he severed his radial arteries.” His gaze burns a hole into the floor. “The paramedics that found him said that he was bundled tight, that Itachi had actually knotted the blankets in the center so they couldn’t shift. The last comfort he felt before he left the world was a bedsheet.”

Sasuke clenches his jaw as more tears blur his vision, until he can’t read the letter on his lap anymore.

“He died alone, in every way.” And Sasuke would never understand how a thought could be so heavy that it made every muscle in his body seize as if they were trying to physically support it.

“He didn’t deserve that,” Naruto says solemnly.

Sasuke shakes his head vigorously, tears whipping of his face at the force. “He didn’t deserve anything he got.” His hands fisted.

There’s silence. All either of them can hear is the hum of the refrigerator from the kitchen.

“You know he fell in love? I didn’t even know it. I knew he was seeing someone, but he never told me it was that serious. But he met someone through a mutual friend and—fell in love. Really hard. Wanted to be with him. I know because he wrote about it in these—” He has to force himself to relax to he doesn’t crumple the letter. “And you know what happened?”

Naruto’s gaze is wary, unsure if it was a rhetorical question, unsure if Sasuke would finally snap. “The guy left him?”

“No,” Sasuke spits, bitter, “the guy died.”

Naruto’s face, having been composed and careful, drops with shock.

“Itachi falls in love and starts to feel like things will be okay again, and that person fucking _dies_.” His hand fists abruptly, as if he could gather his rage up in a clenched palm and strike at the universe. The action crinkles part of the letter in his hand. “Itachi was so broken up over it he wrote that he felt _cursed_.”

His gaze drops back down, and like the lid being taken off a boiling pot, all his anger swirls away into the nothingness of the apartment, and once again all he can feel is the hollowness of his chest, the way it wants to cave in on itself.

Naruto still doesn’t speak. Sasuke doesn’t know why. Maybe Naruto finally realizes that there’s nothing he can say, that not every tragedy can be talked through because he’s experienced pain, too. Maybe he realizes that sometimes you have to just sit and feel, even though you think it could kill you, because in reality, refusing to confront your own emotions is an even worse death.

“What’s that?” Naruto whispers, nodding to the letters.

Sasuke shifts, fingers rubbing over the paper. It’s all he has left of Itachi. It’s the most honest representation of his brother he’s ever gotten, and though it shreds him up, again and again, every time he reads them, he’s the only one that will look at Itachi and see _Itachi_ now, so he has to; he has to humanize his brother, he has to see him for all the brokenness and sickness and still love him, because no one did it when he was alive. More than ever it’s becoming the only thing Sasuke has to keep him going.

“Itachi had this—person,” he says, eventually. “More than a friend, not really a lover just….” He trails off. “Shisui was his person. They completed each other, they loved each other in such a pure, authentic way. Shisui was the first person to see through Itachi’s genius and love the sweet, intuitive, scared kid that he was.” He lets out a shuddering breath. His tears have stopped, now, and he feels the tight, vaguely crusty feeling around his eyes. “Shisui got leukemia and died when Itachi was thirteen.”

Naruto closes his eyes. It’s all too much, even for him.

“He was always Itachi’s person, though, Itachi never let go of him. He swore that he would keep him alive through the way he loved him. So,” he thumbs at the notes, “he wrote to him. He wrote to him every week since he was thirteen. I have shoeboxes full of them under my bed, but I don’t—” He squeezes his eyes shut. “It’s hard to read what he wrote when he was still alive. Truly alive, because in these….” He swallows again. “He was already dying.”

Naruto is somber and still beside him.

“All of what he was going through, his honest thoughts before he—” he still can’t say that word. “Before he died, they’re here, because Shisui was the only person he felt he could turn to. I’ve read them all so many times that they run through my head all day long. He told Shisui that he didn’t want to let me know what was going on because he didn’t want to bring me into his darkness. He thought I was—too good for his world, or something. He didn’t want to disturb me.” His eyes sting again, and the rational part of his mind errantly tell him that he has not drunk enough water to keep crying like this. “I would do _anything_ for him Naruto, I would have stopped _everything_ to help him, to be with him—”

“I know,” Naruto whispers, and his voice is pained, too. Sasuke doesn’t know if it’s from watching Sasuke suffer or if he’s feeling empathy for Itachi. “I know, Sasuke.” His voice has that vaguely raspy tone to it, the one that feels like a calloused palm giving a back rub. Sasuke wants to lean into it. “That’s why I’m here, Sasuke.”

Sasuke straightens, a little abruptly. “What?” he shoves a hand under his nose, wiping the snot away.

Naruto stares straight at him, eyes the most serious Sasuke thinks he has ever seen. “I’m here. For you. With you. I’m just here, Sasuke.”

Sasuke stares at him for a moment, incredulous, and then snorts, the sound coming out of his nose like acid. “Right. Okay. What, you’re gonna tell me to get up and shower? Gonna make me do the dishes and mop like my dead mom?” He can’t help but bite the words.

Naruto’s expression doesn’t waver in the least. “No. I’m just here, Sasuke.”

And Sasuke stares again. His eyes flick own to the plastic bag Naruto brought. When Naruto sees what he’s looking at, he grabs it and sets it in between the two of them. It crinkles and rustles.

One pair of underwear, a phone charger, a toothbrush, a deck of cards. Nothing else. Sasuke looks back up, confused.

Naruto shrugs his broad shoulders. “You wanna sit on the couch in old underwear and stare at the wall? I’m here. You wanna not shower for a week? I’m still here, with you, Sasuke. We don’t have to eat or sleep or do anything. I’m just here.” He swallows. “And if, one of these days, you feel like getting up and doing the dishes, I’ll be here then, too. If you feel good enough to play cards with me one day, then we’ll do that. Until then, I’ll sit here against the wall until you decide to stand up.”

Sasuke just stares at him, not knowing what he’s feeling, almost wishing he could go numb again.

Naruto was offering to meet him where he was. Naruto wasn’t coming in and trying to fix everything in a flurry like Sakura had begged to do so many times. He wasn’t telling Sasuke what he had to do to get better, or what he was doing wrong. He wasn’t ashamed of how far Sasuke fell, wasn’t disguising it by trying to mask it with a clean kitchen floor and fresh laundry. Naruto wasn’t judging the way Sasuke lived, dilapidated, because he was willing to live it too.

“I’ll sit here and look at every picture of Itachi and listen to every story about him until I hurt over him like you do.”

Without being able to think about it, Sasuke reaches one hand out, a single finger touching on the back of Naruto’s hand.

Itachi lost his person. Maybe he didn’t have to, too.

Naruto’s lips twitch for just a second, but his eyes stay sad.

“Why don’t you tell me more about Itachi.”

**Author's Note:**

> ahhh
> 
> I have a wish...that in canon, after the war and everything settles, naruto sat down with sasuke and let him cry and talk about everything he loved about itachi, because i do believe that in the end, despite everything, sasuke did love itachi more than anything. and i think that sasuke would want to be able to humanize him and see him as more than a weapon or an idealized hero, because itachi was a beloved person, too. 
> 
> so that was kinda inspo for the last scene
> 
> if anyone was confused, the italic "dear shisui" bits were the letters itachi wrote. sasuke just thinks about them all the time. the man itachi fell in love with is very very vaguely implied to be kisame, but you can pretend it is whoever you want <3
> 
> to anyone unfamiliar w debilitating depression, sasukes thoughts and actions, from lacking basic hygiene to not wanting to eat to constant, random thoughts of violent self harm all do happen to people. the listing all of the steps of a very basic task was also to reflect that, im sorry if it got tedious. i wanted to portray how sasuke felt. 
> 
> i'm a bit unsure about this, so comments and feedback are especially welcomed 
> 
> i hope everyone is staying safe during this time! <3
> 
> my twitter is @ flameofarcana come follow me and see me shit post about itachi 24/7
> 
> love yall!!!


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